10 year assessment: some lemons, plenty of lemonade

So today is my anniversary: the 10th anniversary of my arrival in the US. 10 years. 10 long years. Or maybe just 10 years, some of them long, some short. I wonder what I've learned in the intervening span of time? Here are a few things that come immediately to mind.

America the beautiful is a place rife with inconsistencies. This is a place proud of its freedoms and yet riddled with 'isms' that can (and do) often deny you the freedom to be who you are, a freedom as fundamental as the right to life. For me, the last decade has afforded me the opportunity to figure out whether who I am is going to be compromised to get what I want. That was an easy, "No". Figuring out how to get what I want in the absence of that compromise, however, has not been quite as easy.

Much of my time here over the last decade has been spent trying to 'find my way'. I'm not sure that I've found it yet. This is a place where My Way, per Frank Sinatra, is considered to be the way to go and yet for some, the way is fraught with challenge. Well I don't suppose anyone's 'way' is without challenge, but let's take a quick tour of Liesl's Way thus far. After four years at an international organization, a position is created for Liesl. She is interviewed and the role is eventually given to someone 15 years her junior with no relevant experience. The reason, she's told, is that the selected candidate would have more energy than the incumbent. Having had that phrase translated, she now knows that it's well-known code for "she's younger than you". A rude welcome to the post-40 world. OK then. Moving right along.

On the opposite side of that though, I've learned how to use my voice, both the singing and speaking ones. My voice coaches have been extremely successful in teaching me how to use my instrument to bring joy and sometimes tears. I didn't come for that specifically, but no one can know how important it is for me to have gained and held on to that particular bit of knowledge through all the changes scenes of my life. Even as the scenes continue to change, a song of praise and joy will continually be on my lips. The improvements to my voice are probably the single greatest blessing of this past ten years. And this does not negate or denigrate anything I had learned in the years before I got here, lest anyone take it that way. This is about having a vocal breakthrough that was entirely unexpected and all the more significant for its having been unexpected.

In general, I don't complain about the set backs I've faced over the last decade. Some are of my own making, my insistence on My Way is certainly part of that, but at the end of the day it's been a good decade. The broadening of my mind as a consequence of my education, both inside and outside the classroom, and the blessings I've seen and received along the way cannot be denied or downplayed.

As many lemons as there have been, there has also been lemonade. Many interesting friendships created, though some perhaps not nurtured to the extent that they should have been; and many interesting learning experiences. Even the time at the international organization was a growth experience, though there isn't enough money in the world to take me back there! But don't let me tempt God. I have a strong streak of Jonah in me............

I've also tested a few relationships. Some have buckled under the stress, others have not. It is what it is. Moreover, it is as it was meant to be. I accept that I am equally culpable for those failures as much as was the other party. Still, at the end of a decade, I can safely say that the best years are ahead, God willing.

So drink up! There's likely to be a whole lot more lemonade served in the next 10 years.

And for your listening pleasure, a song that seems strangely appropriate here.....Nina Simone sings "I hold no grudge".